Last Human Standing

In "Last Human Standing," the final program of the three-part series "Becoming Human," NOVA examines the fate of the Neanderthals, our European cousins who died out as modern humans spread from Africa into Europe during the Ice Age. Did modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals or exterminate them? The program explores crucial evidence from the recent decoding of the Neanderthal genome. How did modern humans take over the world? New evidence suggests that they left Africa and colonized the rest of the globe far earlier, and for different reasons, than previously thought. As for Homo sapiens, we have planet Earth to ourselves today, but that's a very recent and unusual situation. For millions of years, many kinds of hominids co-existed. At one time Homo sapiens shared the planet with Neanderthals, Homo erectus, and the mysterious "Hobbits"-three-foot-high humans who thrived on the Indonesian island of Flores until as recently as 12,000 years ago.

Related videos

Nothing is more fascinating to us than, well, us. Where did we come from? What makes us human? An explosion of recent discoveries sheds light on these questions, and NOVA's comprehensive, three-part special, "Becoming Human," examines what the latest scientific research reveals about our hominid relatives--putting together the pieces of…

Where did we come from? What makes us human? An explosion of recent discoveries sheds light on these questions, and NOVA's comprehensive, three-part special, "Becoming Human," examines what the latest scientific research reveals about our hominid relatives. Part 1, "First Steps," examines the factors that caused us to split from…

In "Birth of Humanity," the second part of the three-part series "Becoming Human," NOVA investigates the first skeleton that really looks like us-"Turkana Boy"-an astonishingly complete specimen of Homo erectus found by the famous Leakey team in Kenya. These early humans are thought to have developed key innovations that helped…

Human evolution is not a straight line and prehistory is littered with hominids that never made it. Putting flesh and skin back onto ancient bones, this original series recreates every inch of three of our earliest ancestors. From fragments of bones to a recognisable face, prepare to meet some remarkable…

Over 60,000 years ago, the first modern humans--people physically identical to us today--left their African homeland and entered Europe, then a bleak and inhospitable continent in the grip of the Ice Age. But when they arrived, they were not alone: the stocky, powerfully built Neanderthals had already been living there…

When Homo sapiens turned up in prehistoric Europe, they ran into the Neanderthals. The two types of human were similar enough to interbreed -- and both created artifacts of similar complexity. But as more and more Homo sapiens moved into Europe, the balance of power shifted. Neanderthals were overwhelmed. Ever…

Human evolution is not a straight line and prehistory is littered with hominids that never made it. Putting flesh and skin back onto ancient bones, this original series recreates every inch of three of our earliest ancestors. From fragments of bones to a recognisable face, prepare to meet some remarkable…

What's the process of retrieving a sunken ship and preparing it for display in a museum? How do archaeologists work underwater? One of the biggest wrecks ever discovered in Spain was the 'Triunfante', sunk during a French siege in 1795. We follow the process from its discovery to its display…

A lost city is discovered in an emerald jungle of Honduras; the remains of Viking settlements confirm the fierceness of these warriors, but also reveal that they were proud poets; recent excavations expose the story of the mass suicide on Masada in ancient Israel as a myth. ARCHAEOLOGY brings the…

NOVA and National Geographic present exclusive access to a unique discovery of ancient remains. Located in an almost inaccessible chamber deep in a South African cave, the site required recruiting a special team of experts slender enough to wriggle down a vertical, pitch-dark, seven-inch-wide passage. Most fossil discoveries of human…

Scientists have struggled for centuries to pinpoint the qualities that distinguish humans from the millions of other animal species with which we share the vast majority of our DNA. Now, we explore those traits once thought to be uniquely human to discover their evolutionary roots.

In El Sidron, a remote, mountainous region of Northern Spain, a tomb of 49,000 year-old Neanderthal bones discovered, leading to an investigation to solve a double mystery: How did this group of Neanderthals die? And, could the fate of this group help explain Neanderthal extinction?
Scientists examine the bones--buried over…